When I was a kid, I dreamed I could fly like Superman. He was faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able leap tall buildings in a single bound. The Man of Steel was untouchable. He soared far above the commoners - out of reach for those without super human abilities.
There is a large gap between what happens in churches on Sunday morning and what happens in the life of the average person on Monday morning. And this gap grows wider as the cultural differences between the values of the Church and the values of our communities are growing further apart.
When Luke begins the story of Jesus, he makes a simple historical statement loaded with implications. Luke writes, "In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered."
Let's talk about light for a second.
It's never enough.
The holidays make it all too clear for us. The ads come out and we inevitably line up to buy something else that we can't live without.
“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo..."
Mixed drinks lure us in. They mask the punch of an undiluted shot of scotch and increase the sex appeal with fancy colors and garnish. Theology is no different. We can mix in teachings, trite sayings, and bible verses in a way that can mask the punch of a word of law or add a bit of condemnation to a liberating word of grace.
I'm not sure what age most of us get our first hit, but it seems evident that by the time we become teenagers, most of us have become full-blown addicts.
We've become experts at hiding our real lives. We hide our real lives behind a facade of filtered photos, cropped profile pictures, and answers that rarely speak the truth. In the words of Carrie of Portlandia, "people are just cropping out all the sadness."
Early on in conversations about my upcoming ordination, my wife accidentally referred to the day as my "coronation."
The sociologist John Robinson is known by his colleagues as "Father Time." He has dedicated his career to researching how people use their most valuable resource, time. In the book Overwhelmed he makes a crazy statement regarding his research about time:
There's a lie that most Christians have been taught - either blatantly or indirectly. The lie that many of us have taught and many of us believe is that grace is the work of God that gets us in, but our own work is what changes us.
There's this scene in Exodus when Moses notices a bush that is on fire and it isn't burning up. So Moses walks up to the bush to find out what is going on and if the fact that the bush wasn't burning up wasn't enough, the bush starts talking.
The pure, undiluted message of the Gospel is intoxicating. Grace is the unmerited favor of God for corrupted, broken sinners. The death and resurrection of Jesus meets sinners where they are and offers life, forgiveness, and salvation.
In the coming weeks, months, and year, I have a variety of new projects that I have in the works that I want to update you on. I’m super excited about the potential of these and want to make sure you’re in the loop.
